A Breath of Demons
by SpankingHalo
Summary: What happened to Rushton during his imprisonment in The Keeping Place; a tale of darkness, love, destruction and the depths of obsession...
1. Chapter One

**A Breath of Demons****  
**

_but what came in  
was a breath of demons  
that froze love  
swept the house bare  
- Estranged, Edwin Morgan_

These are the things he knows are real: the darkness and the pain and the memories of her.

Everything else is transitory. Everything else is a maybe, a mystery, a production of the powders and potions they force down his throat. How long he has been here, he cannot say.

He wears regret with the rags of his clothes, in the moments when he is closer to sanity than to madness and oblivion. She is the constant in his thoughts, though he doubts she is haunted by him in the same endless, patient way. He clings to her, turning her over and over in his mind as a child might finger some dusty treasure.

The green of her eyes, so human, is protection against the empty, eerie green of the wolves' eyes, flashing in the shadows. In the memory of her black hair slipping through his fingers, he forgets their coarse fur; her lips are far softer than their teeth, her heart harder than the stone he sleeps on. She is unbreakable, and so he shields himself behind her.

He builds himself walls from kisses and words, fortifies them with her wildness, close to savagery at times.

When the beatings come – and they do, always – he endures, the image of her livid on his eyelids. Later, while his breath rattles unheard against the cold stone, he lets himself shiver and shake, lets the pain own him. No one can see him then, limp, waiting for it all to end.

He is sure it will. All things pass – moons, tides, time. Why not this too?

But he has not reckoned with Ariel.

X - X - X - X - X

He is woken by a kick to his ribs. Pain snatches his voice; he is left gasping as indifferent hands haul him to his knees, displaying him like a horse at auction.

At first, the man before him is a stranger. Too clean for the squalid cells, he is pale and white as lily petals, and his beauty is startling in its intensity. Only when he meets the blue eyes is the cruelty there familiar. Suddenly, he can see the child hidden underneath the face of the man – lingering in the petulant curl of the smile, unchanged in the slimness and delicacy of his fingers.

"Rushton Seraphim," murmurs Ariel, soft with glee. "Did you miss me?"

Their enmity is old; it seems it is as rooted in him as bones and teeth, calcified and sharp.

His voice is rusty. "Yes, but give me a bow and I'll rectify the error."

Ariel chuckles, but the mirth has gone from his eyes. "They said they'd had trouble breaking you."

His smile widens. He is unearthly, glorious, a fallen angel touching earth.

"I won't," he says, and the threat is chilling.

X - X - X - X - X

He turns his head away from the powder the first time. It is the lurid red of poison berries, staining the greyed cloth it's held in.

"Are you going to resist?" Ariel says sweetly.

He glares back, eyes sore from the lack of sleep, ribs sore from another beating.

A smile, dazzling. "_Good_," Ariel whispers.

Hands grip his head – he is forced down to the powder, fighting not to breathe. His lungs are fire, his blood thunder in his veins, and he knows that he can take no more, that he can no more stop breathing than he can stop loving her. Both are folly. Both are vital.

His control breaks. He takes a breath.

The powder burns in his nose and throat. He coughs and splutters; they force him to take more. All the while, while his smile gleams white and secret as the moon, Ariel hums a lullaby.

The world disintegrates. He's used to that – he lets it slip and slide around him, and he reaches for her, as he always does. She is his anchor, the axis of the spinning world.

X - X - X - X - X

A pleasant memory. The day was a peaceful one, stolen between the bustle of Obernewtyn, the burgeoning rebellion, other people's needs. Outside, the rain battered on the roof, and inside, they sat in silence. She lay in the crook of his arm, hair loose, idle as Maruman.

Even in moments of rest, there was a tension to her, an air that said she might leave at any moment.

"He's a fool," she muttered, reading through the report one last time.

"He's young," he said, reading over her shoulder. "The two tend to go together."

Her glance was wry. "I don't recall you being foolish."

"I didn't have the time to be. Between carrying pigs and trying to stop other foolish young things ruining all my plans, I kept myself busy."

"Well, if you had been a little less secretive, I might not have gone exploring."

"Mmm." She was a solid weight. "I don't think the evidence is in your favour, Elspeth-love."

Something receded in her eyes, as it always did at the mention of the word. It pained him, the dull ache of a bruise. He was used to it, yet part of him could not help resent it. "Meaning what?"

"You chase adventure like other women chase love," he said, keeping his voice level. "You are like no one I have ever known, if only because I sometimes feel I don't know you at all. You wear secrets as if they are jewellery – you have as much passion for an argument as you do for..." _me_, he wanted to say, but knew it would only cause friction, "...Obernewtyn. You seem incapable of doing anything without adding to your legend-"

Her mouth twitched, perhaps a smile, perhaps annoyance. "I'm not a legend, and I don't want to be."

"I'm aware of that," he replied. "But there are several hundred people outside that door who would disagree."

"Several hundred gullible idiots," she said sourly. Her acrid tone made him smile; that was the woman he knew. Prickly, aloof, outspoken even when she thought she was being tactful. "They can stay out there."

"And we can stay in here," he said, and leaned down to kiss her. "I have you for a little while, at least."

He felt her smile against his mouth, but when she spoke, her voice was all wrong – a silky purr, threaded with malice. "Wrong."

"Elspeth?"

She twisted from his arms, sleek as a cat, and her expression was one of contempt. "You don't have me. You never will. You've been useful to me, Rushton, but that's all."

Shock swept him. She stood over him, tall and terrible and beautiful as a queen.

"What?"

"Master of Obernewtyn!" she drawled. "And so easy to master. You've been a useful tool, oh, very useful, but your time is done. Look at you! You are nothing. You can't even use your powers without us."

Past and present blur; suddenly, he is divided, the man in the memory and the man reliving it. He has the odd sensation that there is another there, a golden gleam at the corner of his vision that vanishes when he tries to focus on it.

"I am learning..." he says, bewildered, wounded as his memory unravels about him.

"Learning! Like a clumsy, stupid child," she mocks.

"I love you," he says, not knowing what else can recall her.

Her laughter rattles like old bones. "And your love is as worthless as your powers."

The words knife him. He cannot cling to the memory – he flees it, terrified, flees into nightmares full of monsters because even those are better than her. He loses himself, lets the walls crumble for the first time. In the crazy meld of pain and darkness and fear, he falls forever, unable to hear himself scream above the ghastly world he has given himself up to.

X - X - X - X - X

Ariel steps from his mind, and leaves him to the madness. All night long , he hears the screams, and well-pleased with his handiwork, hums his soft lullaby.

Rushton Seraphim has broken for the first time. He is a hard man, and tomorrow, when the drugs have faded, he will be defiant again. But Ariel has seen his weakness, read his heart like prophecy, and the future is clear.

He will shatter. And Ariel will reforge him, give him no will but this: Elspeth Gordie will die.

It will be beautiful.

X - X - X - X - X

Thanks for reading. Thoughts adored!


	2. Chapter Two

Many thanks to the lovely people who commented on the last part of this - thank you **F, fictitious character, **and the fabulous **Franklet**.

I adore comments and criticism - let me know what you thought, good, bad, and ugly!

**A Breath of Demons**

_far far away__  
beyond the mist of Jupiter__  
was the longest look  
we took at love_

Out there, on the hills, the nights are wild. Ariel is wild with them, blood echoing like the thunder n his veins, like the unending, unyielding sea. He throws back his head and breathes in the cold air, exhilarating in it.

The wolves snarl and slink at his feet. They answer to no one but him, and know him as their master. As it should be. He scrunches his fingers into their thick fur, and smiles at the fear of the Herders. They think they're wolves, in their grey robes, but he can feel their fear trailing like fingers over his skin in a lingering caress.

Up above, the moon is serene and shimmering, blindfolded by clouds. He knows her power, the heedless moon, conferring light or lunacy in equal measure. She's an old ally of his – she lit the way when he staggered free of Druid's camp, slid free to reveal old prey (even now, he still feel a frisson of pleasure when he thinks of Selmar), concealed him on the dreaming roads.

Ariel read once that the moon was a goddess. If so, she's as capricious and cruel as luck, and he's careful to keep her favour.

And on the altar of these old, old hills, he's laid out her sacrifice.

Rushton Seraphim is a small, still point amidst the havoc of sky and sea. The world turns around him: he faces down Ariel with the pride of a king.

It's amusing, and it's pointless, but Ariel is careful to show nothing on his face. Rushton has to break in the right way, the slow way. No need to destroy his hope too soon: the descent must be complete and irreversible.

Under his hands, the wolf quivers, slave to fear and obedience. One day, Rushton will do the same, and the pleasure will be twice as intense.

"You'll run," Ariel says softly. "And they'll chase you. Maybe if you're lucky, I'll call them off before they catch you."

The thought of blood sends a wave of delight through him. He steps closer to Rushton, the space between them intimate and hostile.

"Or maybe I'll let them have a taste," he whispers.

Rushton's eyes are angry. There's something of the wolf in him too – dark hair tumbling like a pelt over his face, the eerie green echo of his eyes under moonlight – but it's so controlled. He doesn't even give Ariel the satisfaction of a reply.

With the greatest disdain, Rushton turns his back, and he walks – walks! – down the slope as if there's all of time before him, as if the wolves aren't snuffling after him already.

Ariel signals: two Herders flank Rushton, grab him, turn him, and trap him as Ariel daintily takes out the drug.

There it is – a flash of fear in his face, quickly hidden behind bared teeth.

"What's wrong?" Rushton says through gritted teeth. "Afraid to give me a fair fight?"

Ariel knows his beauty as the shark knows the waters of its territory. He knows the sea-foam gleam of his hair, the white of his smile curling and uncurling, breaking like the waves below. He uses it effortlessly, another weapon in his arsenal.

He leans in. The distance between them is thin as a petal. He can feel Rushton's breath trembling on his face, and Ariel thinks fleetingly that it would be an even sweeter revenge to rob Elspeth of him, to make him not only fearful and obedient, but loving too, crawling behind Ariel on his belly for all his days and thinking it bliss.

But he thinks that Elspeth is cold enough to survive the loss. It isn't final enough: he needs her ruined.

So he tangles his fingers in Rushton's hair as if he were another wolf, and is gentle as an angel, and sees the confusion flickering in his eyes.

"Oh, it isn't fear," Ariel breathes, voice silky-soft. His fingers slide to the back of Rushton's neck.

"No?" Rushton snaps. "What is it then?"

Ariel raises his eyebrows. "Good sense," he says, and claps the cloth over Rushton's face.

He has nowhere to go: he is caged in Ariel's grip. Still he fights not to breathe, as he did before – will the man never learn? – but at last his lungs give out, and Rushton inhales the drug, spluttering and twitching as it seeps into his blood.

Under the blind moon, he staggers over the hills, small, fading point amidst the havoc of sky and sea. Ariel watches him fade like a morning star, and then he unleashes the wolves.

Their howls mingle with the wind: they're nothing but shadows streaking through shadows, and he should feel victory, he should be pleased, but something is puzzling him. And when he pinpoints the feeling, it disturbs him enormously.

Even though Rushton is out of sight, the world still turns around him.

X – X – X – X – X

Rushton runs. He has no other choice.

The night flashes by in ragged pieces. A shaft of moonlight catching silver on a puddle. Shingle that shifts under his feet and cuts his hands. The wolves behind him, always behind him, hot breath and growls that seem to come from everywhere. Only the cold is constant, seeping through every tear in his clothes.

Under the drugs, everything is terrible. He sees faces leering from the interplay of branch and shadow, hears voices weeping on the wind. He stumbles back from a plague-riddled child only to blink and see rocks.

And he cannot stop.

They torment him, his ghosts, leaping out from crevices, riding on the wind. He gasps for breath, unable to spare the time to fight them. The wolves are closing him down.

He slips. His chin cracks on something hard and he tastes blood, the only warmth in this icy night.

Teeth close on his leg. He turns, and for a maddened moment, it is Elspeth there, green eyes glaring out from a wolf's face. He cannot bring himself to hit her-

Weight hits him, hot, hectic. When he blinks, he sees only wolves around him, and he fights in earnest. Pain jabs him in a dozen places – he's bleeding, pinned by their teeth, and Rushton knows the end is surely near. Above them, faint and untouched by the wind, he sees the ghosts crowd in.

Selmar, Pavo, Alexi, Madame Vega, enemies and allies neutral in death. Dream-like, he reaches for them with a bloodied hand-

An angel of death outshines them all. They are torn to pieces by its arrival: this thing in gold and white whose smile is like a sword.

And Rushton cannot comprehend it, but the wolves are gone leaving only pain and blood oozing sluggishly from him. He lies on the ground, gasping, eyes fixed upon the angel and its ever-nearer smile.

"Your life is mine," it says in a voice rough with glee. It touches a hand to one of his wounds; his blood stains its fingers, and with great slowness, the angel licks it clean. "You are mine."

"No," he says. There's someone else he belongs to: dark hair and dark secrets, strong as stone. "Hers."

"She doesn't love you."

He turns his head away from the angel. He sees the hills dropping away, and at their feet, the sea. It reminds him of days upon a boat, of a journey he took with her when she said _ravek_, and smiled, and love was more than a word.

When he looks back, he sees Ariel.

"Wrong," Rushton whispers, even though he is afraid.

The blow sends him tumbling into the fathoms of his own mind: into a battlefield of another sort.

X – X – X – X – X

Thank you for reading! Comments adored.


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